The Net (1995) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error A computer programmer stumbles upon a conspiracy, putting her life and the lives of those around her in great danger. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 35 titles created 08 Oct 2011 a list of 45 titles created 03 Nov 2012 a list of 40 titles created 27 Oct 2013 a list of 30 titles created 06 Mar 2014 a list of 21 titles created 6 months ago Search for " The Net " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. 2 wins & 1 nomination.

See more awards » Videos Two gifted high school students execute a "perfect" murder - then become engaged in an intellectual contest with a seasoned homicide detective. Director: Barbet Schroeder A big-city newspaper columnist is forced to enter a drug and alcohol rehab center after ruining her sister's wedding and crashing a stolen limousine. Director: Betty Thomas A hopeless romantic Chicago Transit Authority token collector is mistaken for the fiancée of a coma patient. Director: Jon Turteltaub A soon-to-be-married man encounters an exciting stranger after his plane suffers an accident on takeoff. Director: Bronwen Hughes An FBI agent must go undercover in the Miss United States beauty pageant to prevent a group from bombing the event. Director: Donald Petrie A young police officer must prevent a bomb exploding aboard a city bus by keeping its speed above 50 mph. Director: Jan de Bont Edit Storyline Angela Bennett's a software engineer type who works from home and has few friends outside of cyberspace. Taking her first vacation in years, she becomes embroiled in a web of computer espionage. Written by Rob Hartill See All (174) » Taglines: Imagine a world where everything about you is on record.

A world where every trace of your existence is on computer... A world which could easily be erased... See more » Genres: Rated PG-13 for violence, some sexuality and brief strong language | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 28 July 1995 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Did You Know? Trivia At the beach scene, the book Angela has in hands and throws down shortly is 'Love in the Time of Cholera' by Gabriel García Márquez . See more » Goofs When Angela receives the disc that Dale sent her, they are talking on the phone and he is looking at his computer screen that says she signed for the disc 3 minutes ago. The tracking activity of the package is listed with only a time and no date. Tracking a dateless package would be rather useless for an international courier such as FedEx, which could take days for long trips. See more » Quotes [Angela, who already sent the incriminating info to the FBI at the last second, is approached and caught by Devlin and Marx] Jack : [shoves Angela over] Get away from the computer. What did think you were trying to do? Save the world? Angela Bennett : No.

Not the world. Just myself. Jack : Ah, I'm afraid it's too late for that. The offer's been withdrawn. Angela Bennett : Um, you might wanna look at the screen, because everything on that disk was just sent to the FBI. Everything. Very well done and thought out. 10 April 2005 | by (jww@jwcomp.com) (Lawrenceville, NJ) – See all my reviews If you're actually reading this review, I give you a lot of credit. You care enough to actually look up this movie, which most people have forgotten about and then cared to read beyond the first review! So for your reading pleasure... I'm assuming you know the plot line already so I won't waste time typing that out. I will mention that Sandra Bullock did an amazing job with this movie. She really brought a lot of sympathy to the role of a computer programmer, often difficult to do. I can say this because I happen to be a computer programmer. Anyway, I thought the basic plot was a very good one. You can easily build sub-plots upon its mainframe and turn it into a very enjoyable movie.

The premise is also scarily realistic in that this can all really happen if the right precauctions aren't taken. To make a long review short...oops! Too late! If you enjoy Sandra Bullock bringing a role to life and want to see a very well made movie for the time, take a look at this little gem. You won't be disappointed. :-) 46 of 69 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Sandra Bullock at Hollywood Cult Movies Love Potion #9 [DVD] (1993) DVD A hilarious romantic farce based on the classic pop song, as a pair of nerdish scientists fall in love after taking the title elixir, then take off on a wild adventure to recover it after it's swiped. Tate Donovan, Sandra Bullock and Dale Midkiff star. 97 min. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital Surround, Dolby Digital 4.0; Subtitles: English, Spanish; featurette; TV spots; theatrical trailer. Demolition Man [DVD] (1993) DVD In the late 1990s, maverick L.A.

cop Sylvester Stallone and crazed super-criminal Wesley Snipes are put in suspended animation by the state, but when Snipes is revived and escapes into the non-violent, politically correct society of 2032, the authorities have to thaw out Stallone in order to stop his old nemesis. Sandra Bullock, Nigel Hawthorne and Denis Leary co-star in this witty sci-fi actioner. 115 min. Standard and Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital mono; Subtitles: English, French, Spanish; production notes; scene access; theatrical trailers; audio commentary. Speed (Special Edition) [DVD] (1994) DVD Electrifying action thriller starring Keanu Reeves as a member of the Los Angeles SWAT team who must rescue the passengers on a bus booby-trapped by deranged bomb expert Dennis Hopper--if the vehicle goes under 50 mph, it explodes! Sandra Bullock is the courageous commuter in charge of driving. With Jeff Daniels, Joe Morton and an amazing array of wild stunts. 115 min.

Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, French Dolby Digital Surround; Subtitles: English, Spanish; audio commentary by De Bont, more; extended scenes; theatrical trailers; featurettes; multi-angle scenes; interviews; TV spots; music video; photo gallery; documentary; more. Two-disc set. While You Were Sleeping [DVD] (1995) DVD Lively romantic comedy showcasing the affable Sandra Bullock as a Chicago transit worker who saves the life of a slick lawyer she's smitten with after he falls near an oncoming train. While he's hospitalized in a coma, Bullock is assumed to be the lawyer's fiancee by his eccentric family, but the arrival of a handsome older brother complicates matters. With Bill Pullman, Peter Gallagher. 103 min. Widescreen; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital Surround, French Dolby Digital Surround; Subtitles: Spanish; theatrical trailer; interactive menus; scene access.

The Net (Special Edition) [DVD] (1995) DVD Sleek suspenser with Sandra Bullock as a lonely computer wizard whose Mexican vacation turns dangerous when she meets a British hacker in search of a disc that offers access to secret government files. Back in the U.S., Bullock discovers that her identity has been "deleted" as she is pursued by both police and the disc's mysterious designers. With Jeremy Northam, Dennis Miller and Diane Baker. 114 min. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital stereo, Portuguese Dolby Digital stereo, Spanish Dolby Digital stereo; Subtitles: English, Chinese, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai; audio commentary; featurettes; filmographies; production notes; more. Two If By Sea [DVD] (1996) DVD Off-the-wall romantic romp starring Denis Leary as a thief who swipes a priceless Matisse painting and goes on the lam with adventurous cashier girlfriend Sandra Bullock. While hiding out in a snobby New England coastal town, the two squabble over their future and discover that there may be a real art thief in their midst. 96 min.

Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1; Subtitles: English, French, Spanish; "making of" featurette; filmographies; theatrical trailers; biographies; interactive menus; scene access. Hope Floats [DVD] (1998) DVD Winning romantic story featuring Sandra Bullock as a woman who discovers that her storybook marriage is kaput when she learns of her hubby's indiscretions on a TV talk show. Bullock heads back to her small Texas hometown with her daughter, makes amends with her parents and eventually falls for childhood friend Harry Connick, Jr. With Mae Whitman, Gena Rowlands. 114 min. Standard and Widescreen; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital stereo, French Dolby Digital stereo; Subtitles: English, Spanish; theatrical trailer; interactive menus; scene access.

Forces Of Nature [DVD] (1999) DVD With his New York-Savannah flight cancelled and two days to get to Georgia for his wedding, uptight book blurb writer Ben Affleck reluctantly accepts help from another stranded passenger, free spirit Sandra Bullock. Their wild odyssey by car, train and bus includes run-ins with the law, dancing in a nightclub, a hurricane and maybe romance in this winning comedy. Maura Tierney, Steve Zahn, Blythe Danner also star. 106 min. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtrack: English Dolby Digital 5.1; behind-the-scenes featurette; biographies; deleted scenes; theatrical trailer. Miss Congeniality [DVD] (2000) DVD Laughs and suspense mix when tomboy FBI agent Sandra Bullock poses as Miss New Jersey in the Miss United States beauty contest in order to stop a terrorist from blowing up the pageant. Turning the ungainly and unfeminine Bullock into a believable contestant, even with help from glamour consultant Michael Caine, could be more difficult than catching the bomber! With Candice Bergen, Benjamin Bratt, Ernie Hudson and William Shatner as the show's host.

110 min. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1; Subtitles: English, French; audio commentaries by Bullock, others; "making of" featurettes; biographies; theatrical trailer; more. Two Weeks Notice [DVD] (2002) DVD Tired of constantly babysitting self-absorbed billionaire boss Hugh Grant, neurotic environmental lawyer Sandra Bullock decides to quit. After parting ways, the squabbling duo suddenly realize that they have fallen for each other. But is their love strong enough to overcome their countless differences? Winning romantic comedy co-stars Alicia Witt, David Haig. 101 min. Standard; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1; Subtitles: English, French, Spanish; audio commentary by Bullock, Grant, more; deleted scenes; filmographies; "making of" documentary; outtakes; theatrical trailer.

Sandra Bullock Movies Sandra Bullock Movies Welcome to Hollywood Released on Jun 27, 1996 | Comments are off Get ready to see the City of Angels in a way you haven t before through the eyes of Nick Decker. An ambitious but unknown actor Decker plunges headfirst into Hollywood s notorious star making maze in the hope of finding fame and celebrity. But Nick quickly learns that LA is always full of surprises and you never know who s going to make it.System Requirements:Running Time: 89 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 692865361336 Manufacturer No: T-3613 Two if by Sea Released on Jan 12, 1996 | Comments are off A comedy of love, laughter, and larceny. With the FBI hot on their trail, a petty thief (Denis Leary) and his long-tim girlfriend (Sandra Bullock) take up temporary residence in a beach house on a posh island, where their love for each other is put to the ultimate test.

“The best romantic comdey, caper, date film of the year.” (Norman Mark, WMAQ-TV/Chicago). The Net Released on Jun 28, 1995 | Comments are off The Net, the first of Hollywood’s big cyberthrillers of the mid-1990s, was also the most successful, thanks in large part to the natural appeal of star Sandra Bullock. Still riding high from Speed and While You Were Sleeping, Bullock plays a computer expert victimized by sinister cyberforces who steal her identity for reasons unknown. It’s a clever combination of high-tech paranoia and Hitchcockian references (including Jeremy Northam as a romantic stranger named Devlin, after Cary Grant in Notorious). Film historians may look back someday on films like this–Roger Ebert calls them “hacksploitation”–to see what they reveal about our society’s reaction to the increasing role of technology in our lives, just as we now study the fears of Communism and the atom bomb reflected in films of the 1950s. Dennis Miller and Diane Baker costar.

–Jim Emerson While You Were Sleeping Released on Apr 21, 1995 | Comments are off If you don’t mind a heavy dose of schmaltz and sentiment, this romantic comedy has a gentle way of seducing you with its charms. While You Were Sleeping was the first starring role for Sandra Bullock after her blockbuster success in Speed. In a role that nicely emphasizes her easygoing appeal, Bullock is the reason the movie works at all. She plays Lucy Eleanor Moderatz, a Chicago Transit tollbooth clerk who’s hopelessly smitten with a daily commuter, Peter Callaghan (Peter Gallagher). She saves the object of her affection from certain death after he’s mugged and falls onto the train tracks. While Peter is in a coma, she lets his family believe that she is his fiancée, and surprisingly finds herself drawn to his brother (Bill Pullman), for whom the attraction is definitely mutual. How Lucy gets out of this amorous predicament is what makes this pleasant movie less predictable than its familiar ingredients would initially indicate. It’s feel-good fluff, with characters and performances that keep you smiling through the drippy plot mechanics.

–Jeff Shannon Speed Released on Jun 10, 1994 | Comments are off Everything clicked in this 1994 action hit, from the premise (a city bus has to keep moving at 50 mph or blow up) to the two leads (the usually inscrutable Keanu Reeves and the cute-as-a-button Sandra Bullock) to the villain (Dennis Hopper in psycho mode) to the director (Jan De Bont, who made this film hit the ground running with an edge-of-your-seat opening sequence on a broken elevator). This is the sort of movie that becomes a prototype for a thousand lesser films (including De Bont’s lousy sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control), but Speed really is a one-of-a-kind experience almost anyone can enjoy. –Tom Keogh Demolition Man Released on Oct 08, 1993 | Comments are off Searching for new directions, Sylvester Stallone starred in this farcical, 1993 SF piece about an ex-cop (Stallone) freed from 36 years of forced hibernation to help catch a criminal (Wesley Snipes) who released himself from a similar incarceration.

The futuristic story finds Los Angeles a sea of Taco Bells and enforced peace, and within that satiric overview Stallone’s character becomes a gun-toting fish out of water. The film plays like a live-action cartoon, and while there is nothing particularly wrong with that, Demolition Man is a rather flat experience. The irony of a peaceable society that both requires and despises its bloody saviors has been captured far more profoundly in movies like Dirty Harry. Sandra Bullock costars. The DVD release has optional full-screen and widescreen presentations, production notes, theatrical trailer, Dolby sound, optional Spanish soundtrack, and optional French and Spanish subtitles. –Tom Keogh The Thing Called Love Released on Jul 16, 1993 | Comments are off If there was a universal collective, albeit repressed, dream, it would probably be to become a successful singer. People would take that singing in the car, singing in the shower, and even singing in the rain, and have it be their life’s love and work. The Thing Called Love uses this popular aspiration as its setting and examines the lives of four young people hoping to make it in the country music universe.

At the center is earnest Miranda Presley–no relation–(Samantha Mathis), the pretty but untalented Linda Lue (Sandra Bullock), the intense and talented James (River Phoenix), and the sweet and prolific Kyle (Dermont Mulroney). Popular country stars make appearances: K.T. Oslin (as Lucy, the owner of the Bluebell, where open-mike auditions are held), Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Katy Moffatt, Jo-El Sonnier, Pam Tillis, Kevin Welch, and even Trisha Yearwood. The film’s not merely focused on the rich musical milieu and its talented cast. It also carefully examines the dynamic between friends who are also competitors, as well as a realistic love triangle between the leads. The Thing Called Love is primarily known as one of River Phoenix’s last performances, but even if curiosity alone brings audiences to the movie, they’ll soon be drawn into the fresh tale of four young people pursuing their dreams. –N.F.

Mendoza When the Party’s Over Released on Mar 12, 1993 | Comments are off Sandra Bullock, Elizabeth Berridge, Rae Dawn Chong and Fisher Stevens star in this powerful and intimate look at success, friendship and sex in the 1990’s. A group of young, sophisticated and beautiful friends are bent on having it all. Living together in an exclusive section of Los Angeles makes life one ongoing party. Their bodies are beautiful, their beds are busy, their careers are rising fast – especially for M.J. (Chong). Her charm and sexy good looks allow her to manipulate and use everyone around her, even her closest friends. But what happens when the party’s over? The Vanishing Released on Feb 05, 1993 | Comments are off It’s not unusual for Hollywood to remake European hits. What is unusual is the director of the original getting the chance to helm the new version with an American cast, which is what happened with this film based on an intensely creepy Dutch film of the same name (both directed by George Sluizer). Kiefer Sutherland and Sandra Bullock are on vacation when, while stopped at a crowded rest area, she disappears.

He devotes the next several years to discovering what happened to her, ruining his life in the process. When he does get a clue, it leads him to Jeff Bridges, who plays a bizarre and highly organized individual whose motives are almost as strange as he is. Bridges is spooky, but Sluizer ultimately is undone by Hollywood’s demand for a happy ending, which makes this film affecting but far less unsettling than the original. –Marshall Fine Love Potion No. 9 Released on Nov 13, 1992 | Comments are off The premise of Love Potion #9–that a magic potion makes the user irresistible to the opposite sex–could be the setup for the crassest sex farce imaginable. Instead, this film is a surprisingly subtle romantic comedy. Nebbishy scientist Paul (Tate Donovan) goes to a Gypsy fortuneteller (Anne Bancroft), who tells him she sees no women in his entire life. To make up for this depressing news, she gives him a few drops of a love potion–number 8.

Paul, a biochemist, scoffs; but when his pet cat accidentally gets a taste and attracts every female cat in the neighborhood, he enlists fellow dweeby scientist Diane (Sandra Bullock) to analyze it. After experimenting on monkeys, they decide to test it on themselves; soon Diane is being pursued by handsome Italians in the street and comes close to marrying the Prince of England, while Paul gets a little revenge on a woman who previously rejected him, then embarks on his own love spree. Shortly they discover that they really want each other; but before they can get married, an old boyfriend of Diane returns with his own dose of love potion number 8. Paul’s only hope is to get something even more powerful. Love Potion #9 is genuinely clever and sweet, and both Donovan and Bullock work well with the low-key but effective humor of the movie’s well-written script. It’s a tribute to her talent and her girl-next-door looks that Bullock, unlike most pretty stars dressing down, is effective as both a lovelorn loser and the confident glamour-girl she becomes. Altogether, a charming and enjoyable film.

–Bret Fetzer The Net Reviews & Ratings - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 8:34 AM, PST NEWS 46 out of 69 people found the following review useful: Very well done and thought out. from Lawrenceville, NJ 10 April 2005 If you're actually reading this review, I give you a lot of credit. You care enough to actually look up this movie, which most people have forgotten about and then cared to read beyond the first review! So for your reading pleasure... I'm assuming you know the plot line already so I won't waste time typing that out. I will mention that Sandra Bullock did an amazing job with this movie. She really brought a lot of sympathy to the role of a computer programmer, often difficult to do. I can say this because I happen to be a computer programmer. Anyway, I thought the basic plot was a very good one. You can easily build sub-plots upon its mainframe and turn it into a very enjoyable movie. The premise is also scarily realistic in that this can all really happen if the right precauctions aren't taken. To make a long review short...oops! Too late!

If you enjoy Sandra Bullock bringing a role to life and want to see a very well made movie for the time, take a look at this little gem. You won't be disappointed. :-) Was the above review useful to you? 35 out of 52 people found the following review useful: 25 years ago this would have been science fiction. Today it's cliché. from Luoyang, China 25 July 2004 Odd the way technology works. Less than a decade ago, there was this completely different technological world, a world of pagers, floppy disks, dial-up modems (which are as obsolete as typewriters), and gigantic brick-like cell phones. I remember being amazed at that little tiny flap at the bottom of the phone, as thin as a credit card and yet able to pick up your voice and transmit it through the air. Now it's a feature so obsolete that it may as well never have been there. Sandra Bullock plays Angela Bennett, a lonely computer analyst who is so connected to her computer that she sits on the beach in Mexico, on her first vacation in six years, with her laptop on her lap.

It's not only like a source of nourishment but her connection to the world and the establishment and maintenance of her identity. This is where her problems begin. Like The Manchurian Candidate back in the 1960s (and again in less than a week from this writing), The Net plays on the popular fears of the society in which it is released. The Manchurian Candidate originally played off the fears instilled in people by the recently ended Cold War, while The Net, a much less potent thriller, suggests the scary possibilities of a world in which we are so inextricably connected to computers. Probably the most interesting thing in the movie now is the computers, such as the massive laptops with the tiny screens, the indispensable floppy disks which are now almost nonexistent, the graphics, etc. Angela Bennett has had her digital identity stolen and replaced with that of Ruth Marx, who has a lengthy police record and who thus takes over Angela's identity.

It's pretty clever, I suppose, the way the movie presents Angela as though she hasn't left her apartment in six years and with a mother suffering from Alzheimer's (and thus not able to help identify the real Angela later), but it's pretty hard to believe that not a single person in the office where she worked noticed that Angela started being a completely different person. She had no significant other, was not dating, and no parents who could identify her, but was she such a recluse that even the people in the office she worked in didn't even know what she looked like? At any rate, the plot of the movie is pretty smartly created, although it is created as though it were an excuse for a lot of chase scenes, one of which takes place on a merry-go-round in a great homage to Hitchcock's Strangers On A Train, one of the many classic films to which the movie alludes, several of them other Hitchcock films. Bennett has been given a disk which contains a website, I suppose, which turns out to contain a weakness in a security system about to be set up to protect everything from banks to Wall Street to the CIA.

By holding down Control and Shift and clicking on the little Pi icon in the corner of the screen, you are transported from a ludicrous page about Mozart's Ghost, apparently a god-awful metal band, and into highly classified government documents. The disk provides the bad guys with a reason to want to capture Bennett, and thus you have a movie. Angela goes from a comfortable but bored computer analyst, doing a lot of her work from home and ordering pizza on the Internet at the end of the day (presumably one of the future possibilities of the internet which never came to exist), to a wanted fugitive, ultimately caught and put into a jail cell for someone else's crimes. She has lost her home, her job, her identity, her life. Bullock actually puts in a pretty good performance in the movie. I'm not a huge fan, but I appreciated the realness that her character had, since she is not an over the top actor, her characters are generally very real because she is as well.

Where the movie trips up is that it tries to suggest that such identity theft could happen to anyone in our technological age, but given the effort put into presenting Angela as someone with no personal contacts with just about anyone, really it could only happen to someone like Angela, and are there really that many people that no one can identify by looks? Even the guy at the local video store might recognize her as the lady who rents under her account. Oh well. There's also a glitch in the end of the movie that Mick LaSalle points out and that only people familiar with San Francisco, where the climax of the film takes place, will notice. As Angela rushes through a Macintosh exhibition at the real Moscone Center, she desperately tries to copy all the computer files before the bad guys get her. Pretty tense, but if she had been smart, she could have gone to The San Francisco Chronicle office, which is a block down the street from the Moscone Center. But hey, maybe the Chronicle doesn't have high enough walkways out back. Was the above review useful to you?

39 out of 63 people found the following review useful: Good Suspense; Bullock Tolerable For Once from United States 5 November 2006 This is a typical Sandra Bullock movie in which she plays a mousy (but profane) woman who is in trouble but finds a way to survive and be the hero. Sound familiar? There are plenty of holes in this story. Things just don't add up and some of the suspense is a little corny. But - that suspense is very good. There is a lot of tension in this story which has strong paranoia running through it. The story starts off slow but kicks in pretty soon and stays that way, making it an involving movie for the viewer. That's why I give it a pretty good rating - the movie gets you involved in it. Bullock is more cute than annoying, which she normally is to me, so this is my highest-rated movie with her in it. Was the above review useful to you? 41 out of 69 people found the following review useful: Her driver's license. Her credit cards. Her bank accounts. Her identity. DELETED. from Brazil 11 November 2005 The net is an excellent movie!

It's about Angela Bennett(in a great performance of Sandra Bullock) who is a computer expert who works for the Cathedral Company, cleaning virus and testing games for the clients. Angela is a typical nerd who doesn't have friends outside of the cyberspace,almost doesn't take vacations and go out, and stays almost all the time connected. One day her friend Dale Hessman(Ray McKinnon) asks her to help him,sending Angela a disk with a strange program that has many confidential informations. At the same night, when Dale was going to meet her, he is suddenly killed in a plane crash.Going to Mexico in her vacation,Angela meets a beautiful guy called Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam)who shows to be a cold blood killer bastard and one of the guys behind all the secret of the Diskette. Her life then turns into a nightmare: All her records are erased and she is given the new identity of Ruth Marx, a woman with serious problems with the police.

This movie is great because it shows how we, humans,depend a lot of the computers and machines(sometimes more that we should) and how vulnerable we are if someday ,someone decides to control and change our personal records,without letting us the chance to prove the error. Was the above review useful to you? 18 out of 25 people found the following review useful: Cyber-thriller has a few internal glitches, but it keeps on running. from Suffolk, Virginia 17 February 1999 This isn't a bad movie thriller to keep you off the Internet for two hours, but can you take the risk? THE NET sounds unconvincing since our love of computers and cyber-sputting expresses what the story is all about, and a possible fad to recognize. Thankfully, it does attempt to bring some raw suspense that is head-and-shoulders above other lame films that contend to "artificial communication". Once again, Sandra Bullock knows how to keep her fans happy, and even though it's no "chick-flick", she's still the likeable character inside. This time, she's stalked in a game of cat-and-mouse and becomes ruined by an identity crisis.

Even with the brand new concept of cyberware, that's just normal for a suspense thriller. An old, traditional "chase" plot gives the movie a blip on the screen, but the story is greatly paced and exciting enough to increase your pulse rate to rapid highs. The computer mess is the biggest fuss some viewers will have in common, including all those not used to this new style. A good shot at a modernization of mystery-suspense films, but you know exactly what to predict here. Why the new TV series? Was the above review useful to you? 15 out of 21 people found the following review useful: THE NET : Irwin Winkler Wastes The Film's Potential... *** This review may contain spoilers *** THE NET I certainly didn't expect this movie to be classic when I put it in last night. I was thinking it would be a "no-brainer" stupid little thriller starring Sandra Bullock. Essentially... I was right. THE NET had the potential to be a better film. The storyline actually creates situations of immense suspense and is paced rather well. The whole computer virus storyline is so confusing to someone not too familiar with computers...

and I'm sure there are plot holes in there, but I didn't notice. What keeps THE NET from being truly good is terrible direction. Lately, I've started to notice how easily a bad director can destroy a film and this was a good example... certain moments in this film are just comically bad. The scene of Sandra Bullock's boat get away and her impending crash looks terrible. And normally I can forgive obvious special effects... but I'm sorry, the obviously fake rocks, the poorly edited stunt woman, the ridiculous close ups on Bullock's face. This moment is so terrible and just acts like a giant speed bump in the growing action. Aside from this, Jeremy Northam is god awful in his role. He goes so far over the top trying to be this seductive threat in Bullock's life that I was laughing many times when I wasn't supposed to be. The more threatening, angry, and sexual he tries to get... the less frightening he becomes. Not an ounce of nuance or subtlety. Where was a director telling him to hold back? Or just to tell him... get off my set... you suck!

Otherwise, the director, Irwin Winkler, takes far too long at times when he doesn't need to. I liked the Dennis Miller/Sandra Bullock love story that started to develop. But in the end, the scenes are pointless and they come to an abrupt end. And anytime Sandra Bullock was on the run, Irwin Winkler just keeps the camera rolling. There is no example of tightly constructed... suspenseful editing. On the plus side, despite the flaws, the movie still can be exciting at points... and Bullock has some good moments that show some deeper potential. Had this film been done by a director with a keener eye, perhaps both Bullock and the film could have been much better. As is, it's the kind of film that's easy to sit through... but that's partially b/c it's so bad it's good. It's not the worst film that ever was, but it could have been far better. ... C/C- ... 5 July 2002 *** This review may contain spoilers *** Okay...

she's on the boat with this guy, realizes he's out to kill her, knocks him out, and then finds the reason he's out to off her is this disk that got her coworker killed. So what would any rational person do? Maybe conk him over the head again to make sure he's really out?? Tie him up?? Look, Sandra honey, you've got the chance to escape while the guy is out for only so long. Until you know how long it will take you take you to escape, make sure he's not able to come after you. I HATE these stupid female victim roles. The rest of the movie was just a series of twists and turns that were completely convoluted and too unbelievable to remain interesting. Was the above review useful to you?

18 out of 31 people found the following review useful: Flimsy, far-fetched, but spunky and attractive from las vegas, nv 11 May 2002 Sandra Bullock is very appealing as an unloved independent systems analyst who unknowingly gets hold of a disk that could bring worldwide chaos; pretty soon, she's dodging bad guys, running from the cops and putting her allies in danger (including Dennis Miller, who is surprisingly good). Despite a penchant for filming mouths in close-up, Irwin Winkler has directed a very fast, fun technical-thriller in which charming Bullock is bounced from one nightmare to another. I loved the way she gets out of a building swarming with security: she dons a fireman's outfit and escapes, but then the bad guys see a nicely piled fireman's outfit (and helmet!) sitting on the sidewalk and yell, "She's getting away!" Just one example of how this movie is so completely brainless, but yet entertaining enough on a non-think level that you tell yourself not to notice. You'll hate yourself in the morning, though. **1/2 from **** Was the above review useful to you?

5 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Sandra Bullock as a nerd? Yes, and Claudia Schiffer is a door stop. *** This review may contain spoilers *** *SPOILERS* There is an early scene where someone decides to shoot himself in a deserted park. The camera pans to the green and tracks a flock of birds as they are startled and fly off into the sky. Do you know what? I think this was planned. An idea! Later a lone pilot crashes his plane and we cut to some red roses. The camera pans up and they are not on a coffin but we get the inference. TWO directorial ideas! In ONE film! You Americans are getting a bit ahead of yourselves, aren't you? But wait, the director wants us to know that the bad guy is a bit of a fibber. Cue lots of swift cuts of various close ups of his twitching face. Also, this is a cyber thriller which means machines, right? Lets have that Terminator music then, *bish-bob-bosh-bish-bob-bosh*. Guys, I knew you wouldn't let me down. I feel safe and secure again in the hands of mediocrity.

This is an episodic and occasionally engaging thriller with a curious heroine. I'm not sure she actually has a pulse. Anxiety seems to be an alien concept to her as she reacts to every situation with the deference of a twelve year old cat. You're an isolated nerd whose whisked away by a dashing Don Juan on a boat and he makes love to you. Ho-hum, no big deal. About as exciting and wonderous as the post arriving. Suddenly you find he has a silencer in his jacket. Nervous? Not a bit of it. You're only alone with a hitman in the middle of no where, don't be silly. Later on our heroine is in a car with one of the bad guys and finally tells him and the world that she's mad as hell and she's not going to take it anymore. Well, not really MAD as such, that would mean getting excited. So she gives us the impression that she's only left her mascara behind kind of upset. Not even being an international fugitive un-settles our sterling gal. Seeing her face on an all points bulletin makes her take extra special precautions. Donning a disguise, like a wig or doing up her hair, perhaps?

A hat or a scarf, maybe? At the very least dark glasses? No, our heroine has outsmarted police officers, professional hitmen and a ruthless and sinister cyber crime syndicate so what does she do? She goes out on the streets in broad daylight as herself. They'd never see that one coming. Will nothing phase our heroine? I guess the only chance of a genuine reaction of anxiety and deep distress from our intrepid geek would come only if the part of her mother had been given to actress Rita Tushingham. Was the above review useful to you? 14 out of 24 people found the following review useful: Not to be taken internally or seriously... from Las Vegas, NV 1 July 2002 In the dim, dead, dark days preceding my ownership of a PC, I was rather intrigued with the movie. Very Hitchcockian in its tone, and kind of a David-beats-Goliath theme that every one can relate to (Apple vs. Microsoft, employee vs. boss, ad infinitum).

Seven years hence...I realize that many of the governmental entities supposedly "hacked" were, at the time of this movie, utilizing systems built when leisure suits were still the rage--and IBM was lord and master of the computer domain. Granted, hackers can be considered a real and acknowledged threat, but we should take this movie for what it is...Just some passably good entertainment and not too representative of R/T (Real Time for all you Netsurfing newbies). However, the plot remains fundamentally sound, and not too taxing on the mind. Sandra Bullock gave a reasonably credible performance as programmer/support tech/consultant Angela Bennett. I realize that sex appeal fuels Hollywood, and it IS possible to have beauty and brains. But the story seems to have some fundamental flaws. What are the odds that NO one would know who you really were...It's impossible to think that we really have become the so-called "ghosts in the machine".

As long as we have receipts, hard copies,friends and loved ones, we won't be caught in "The Net." Some good performances by the smooth but irreverent Dennis Miller, and by the suave but deadly Jeremy Northam make for a movie worth watching when there's nothing better on the boob tube...Or if you're a closet geek like yours truly, you call friends and laugh about all the inaccuracies. Was the above review useful to you? Page 1 of 17: 8 Movies that Crack the Hacker Code - MainStreet MainStreet Jul 15, 2011 3:00 PM EDT ADVERTISEMENT BOSTON ( TheStreet ) -- Hollywood loves hackers. Gone are the Cold War days where men in trench coats puffed cigarettes in the shadows, whispering code words and palming off microfilm. Writers and directors these days have seized upon the ongoing Internet revolution/evolution to use hackers as both a storyline catalyst and escape hatch for when a convoluted plot needs to be rescued with hasty exposition or resolution.

Over time, Hollywood may be relying less on the stereotypical image presented of hackers as basement-dwelling nerds, maniacal geniuses or prodigy-level teens. Damian Gordon, of the School of Computing at Ireland's Dublin Institute of Technology, recently analyzed 50 movies in which hacking is essential to the plot as part of a research paper published in the International Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transactions. His accounting of silver screen hackers goes all the way back to 1968's Hot Millions starring Peter Ustinov, where "shoulder surfing" was a low-tech way to steal data. His breakdown of the hacking genre found that 21 hackers were 25 years old or younger; 37 were age 25-50 and only two were older than 50. For employment, 19 work in the computer industry, 17 were "full-time" hackers, a dozen were students and a dozen had other jobs. More interesting, and against the grain of what one might think, is the difference between "white hat" and "black hat" hackers. "Are hackers generally portrayed as being good guys, bad guys or somewhere in between?" Gordon asks.

In the movies on his list, 44 (73%) of hackers were portrayed as being good guys, six (10%) were portrayed as being in between and 10 (17%) were portrayed as being bad guys. "Increasingly movies are being produced which feature plots that incorporate elements of computer security and hacking, and cumulatively these movies are creating a public perception as to the nature of computer security," he says. "The popular cultural image of a hacker as being a teenager hacking from their bedroom is not being generated from the majority of hackers being featured in movies, in fact, the majority of hackers in movies are good guys between 25 to 50 years old who work in either the computer industry or is a full-time hacker, which matches well with the reality of hackers -- the majority of who see themselves as good guys -- whose average age is said to be 27 years old and who work in either the computer industry or is a full-time hacker." "The one aspect of hacking that is portrayed in movies very inaccurately is the ratio of insider to outsider attacks. In the movies the ratio is 20/80, whereas the reality is very different.

There is a lack of hard statistics for computer crime, thus it is difficult to accurately assess the exact division of attacks between insider and outsider attacks; some suggest it may as high as 50/50," he says. The following are eight movies that feature hacking, whether realistically or with a wide range of artistic license. War Games (1983) This film hit theaters at the height of the Atari-fueled video game craze and features Matthew Broderick as a young computer whiz who logs into a Defense Department super computer and, to his shock and horror, learns the "game" the computer plays is better known to the rest of us as "global thermonuclear war." Set aside the fact that personal computers in 1983 had less processing power than a child's toy does today. It is also hard to believe a dial-up connection could move data fast enough to break into a defense system. Nevertheless, War Games does hold a place in hacker lore for inspiring a process called, in honor of the film, "war dialing." In the movie, Broderick's character creates a program that dials every phone number in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Real-life war dialers used a similar concept back in the age of dial-up, automating the calling of thousands of phone numbers and separating answered calls from those that hit a logged-on computer. These numbers, passed around on message boards, were used to know which computers were attached to easily compromised phone lines. The modern-day variation in technique and name is "war driving," the act of cruising around neighborhoods searching for unsecured Wi-Fi signals to seize upon. "This was one of the first movies to portray a 'digital divide' between those with computer skills who can do anything with computers and those who are not computer skilled and are outsiders in the computerized and networked world," Gordon says. Sneakers (1992) This film, starring Robert Redford and Dan Aykroyd, is one of the few hacker movies to give a decades-spanning back story, setting up its leads as reformed pranksters from the 1960s who gave up on political chicanery as they evolved into security experts retained by the National Security Agency.

The plot device, a black box that can unravel any code, isn't as interesting so much as its portrayal of older guys who, like modern-day Anonymous, are often in it for the "lulz" (if that word existed at the time). Among their stunts: hacking Richard Nixon's personal checking account to make a donation to the National Association to Legalize Marijuana and shifting money from the Republican party to the Black Panthers. Hackers (1995) The name says it all, and this movie was one of the first to expose a mass audience to the world of code-pounding. A boy is caught hacking by government officials when he creates a virus. His punishment is that he cannot use a computer again until his 18th birthday. That long-awaited birthday party comes just in time for the teen and a girl hacker to join forces and stop bad guys from electronically annihilating Wall Street. Beyond giving us the screen debut on Angelina Jolie, the film seems to inspire a soft spot among hackers and security experts. "It is one of the few totally hacking-related films that actually appeals to people who aren't into hacking themselves," is the assessment given in a posting by the security and hacking-focused website Wang Products . "Why?

Because it makes hackers and hacking look cool. You know you would love it if you could do half the things they do in the film." The Net (1995) This film features a young Sandra Bullock as a computer analyst whose life is turned upside down when a hacker steals her identity. The plot, about murder and a secret computer program, may go a bit far afield, but it does accurately predict the overwhelming crime perpetrated by modern hackers. Identity theft and the plundering of credit cards and bank accounts is a driving motivator for personal attacks perpetrated by Trojan viruses and phishing attempts. The Matrix Trilogy (1999-2003) There is really no point trying to compare the feats of hackery here with anything in the real world. In fact, the less you try to think about the trilogy of movies, the more sense they will make. The films try to establish a mind-blowing scenario: that what we perceive as reality is, in fact, an illusion created by the machines that took over the world and enslaved us as living batteries.

Where the film strains even sci-fi credibility is by asking us to believe that not only can a rag-tag band of humans have escaped their wired-in imprisonment, but that they had the wherewithal to build the technology needed to hack into the "matrix" the machine overlords created and use if for their own purposes. Gordon says that while the first film, before Neo becomes Neo, does accurately portray a 25- to 50-year-old hacker working in the computer industry, it "is less memorable for its correct profile of a hacker than it is for people in black coats dodging bullets in slow motion." Swordfish (2001) A rogue CIA agent, played with relish by John Travolta, wrangles the unwilling assistance of a just-out-of-jail hacker extraordinaire in a plot to steal billions in government money tucked away in a secret account. Realism? There isn't really much. The film, like many that delve into hacking, relies on having lightning-fast keystrokes that effortlessly achieve any task, with hastily garbled explanations offered to distract us from the implausibility.

Case in point: In one scene, Jackman's character passes an initiation test given by the bad guys by hacking into a government server in less than 60 seconds, all with a gun held to his head and a young woman performing a very intimate act upon his person. The movie does get brownie points, however, for its title, even though "swordfish" isn't uttered once during the proceedings. It's a coy reference to the Marx Brothers classic Horse Feathers, in which the brothers utter that password to gain entry to a speakeasy. Hackers and The Net also pay homage to this famous code word. The Italian Job (2003) Interestingly, this film, starring Mark Wahlberg and Donald Sutherland, cops its feat of hackery from the 1969 British film it remakes. In both films, manipulating a computerized traffic control system allows a team of thieves to escape after a gold heist by creating a massive traffic jam.

The scam is a bit modernized in that it replaces the original's computer expert (a professor played by Benny Hill) with a spurned hacker (played by Seth Green) whom we are told was the original inventor of Napster (he had the idea, but it was stolen by his roommate, Shawn Fanning). Shortly after the film's release, a malicious hack hit European websites, a Web-redirecting Trojan virus infecting users with Mpack malware unleashed by Russian hackers and dubbed "The Italian Job." As for the scam used in the movie, hackers have long had a smaller-scale version of it. Fishing around online one can find what law enforcement officials call a "traffic signal pre-emption transmitter," a device intended for use by police, ambulances and firefighters to change signal colors as they race through an intersection. Be warned, however, that possession of one of the devices is a crime, as per a law signed in 2005 by President George W. Bush. Live Free or Die Hard (2007) By the time the Die Hard franchise reached this fourth film, the series was starting to run out of gas. After all, how many times can Bruce Willis' everyman hero stumble into spectacular terrorist plots?

The average person gets the chance to spectacularly blow up stuff, at best, once or twice in a lifetime. For John McClane it's a regular occurrence. This time out, McClane is in the middle of a convoluted plot that weds terrorists and hackers. (The film was also referred to as Die Hard "4.0.") A federal infiltration leads the government to try to round up known hackers and discover, eventually, that they're being killed off after having been duped into programming parts of a multipronged attack on the nation's infrastructure. We like megalomaniacal villains as much as the next guy, but is it believable that main villain Thomas Gabriel has the wherewithal to not only hack into the nation's transportation grid, but also control utilities and shut down the stock market? Stealing a PayPal password is one thing, but being able to control every stoplight in the country from a remote location, or redirect natural gas pipelines to cause an explosion, stretches credibility a bit. In come the white hats, among them Kevin Smith as "Warlock," exactly the kind of chubby, lives-in-a-basement, "Maaaaa, make me a sandwich" guy that often passes as a mysterious hacker archetype.

At least he is balanced out by fellow friendly hacker Justin Long, taking a break from playing "Mac" in the popular Mac vs. PC commercials. Despite the bombastic premise, elements of the plot have a ring of truth. As unlikely as it may seem given the dumbed-down nature of the film, a "fire sale" attack on transportation, financial and utilities infrastructures could be possible, but would require massive resources and a small army of hackers to accomplish. It was inspired, after all, by a John Carlin story in Wired magazine, A Farewell to Arms, which suggested in 1997 that "For those on the ramparts of the world's sole superpower, the digital winds are blowing an icy chill through the triumphant glow of the post-Cold War." In 2008, The SANS Institute , a research and education organization focused on security issues, issued the following statement by U.S. Central Intelligence Agency senior analyst Tom Donahue: "We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands. We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge.

We have information that cyber attacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet." RELATED STORIES: Come into my web, said the spider to the fly... - Read expert review at epinions.com Come into my web, said the spider to the fly... Review by captaind Pros: Decent plot, good performances by Bullock and Northam, good cinematography... Cons: ... inconsistent characters spoil the overall effect The Net is a technological thriller starring Sandra Bullock, who plays Angela Bennett, a systems trouble-shooter with a particular interest in viruses. She is a typical nerd, sleeping little, living on take away food, having no boyfriend and practically no social life in the real world, preferring instead to spend all her time on the computer, logged into chat rooms, and the like. She receives a message from a friend / colleague (friendly colleague?) about something big that&#146s about to happen, but no details  he wants to meet her in person.

Reluctantly she agrees to meet him only slightly before she has a flight to catch the following day, but , determined to go on holiday for the first time in ages, she decides to go even though her friend doesn&#146t show up. We soon find Bullock on the beach in a black bikini (yummy ), where her nerdling traits (on the beach with her laptop )are spotted by Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam [Emma, Enigma, Gosford Park]). After various events which I won&#146t elaborate on here, she finds that her real identity had been stolen and that she herself is now wanted by police in several states. What&#146s more, she realises that far more is at stake than she could possibly have imagined and somehow, she&#146s caught up right in the middle of it. The cinematography is effective throughout the film, and Bullock puts in one of her better serious performances here (though I still think quirky comedy is still more her style). Her character is given a decent workout with the events in the film and Bullock is well up to the job.

The hacking scenes are, surprisingly, relatively believable (certainly more so than those in Antitrust or Swordfish!  but then how could they not be?!?!?). The script is, on the whole, fairly tightly plotted and the way someone&#146s life can be completely ruined simply through tampering with computer records is portrayed with quite frightening realism. (If it were not for the film&#146s major fault that I&#146ll mention a bit later, I would definitely say that this film was a far more effective cautionary tale about the dangers of over-reliance on technology than any of the Matrix or Terminator films.) The ancillary actors and actresses (including Dennis Miller [Murder at 1600, Joe Dirt] are fine, nothing special but nothing wrong with their performances either. Northam as the baddie is suitably creepy, but his character is too inconsistent to be believable. In fact, the scenes where he lets Angela get away are what ruin the whole film. His character is ruthlessly efficient, yet is guilty of child-like carelessness at times and gives up very quickly (for no satisfactory reason) on occasions.

The trouble is, these inconsistencies prevent the viewer (except perhaps the very naive or trusting!) from being able to suspend their belief in what&#146s happening in the film. This is a shame as it turns what is otherwise a surprisingly effective techno-thriller into an entertaining, but ultimately somewhat disappointing film. Recommended only really to fans of Bullock and / or very undemanding entertainment. It just scrapes a &#147Recommended rating from me since I do like our Sandra and it was actually a lot better than I thought it was going to be. Other Information Directed by: Irwin Winkler [The Shipping News, De-Lovely, Enough, Rocky I  V] Writing credits: John D. Brancato, Michael Ferris [Catwoman, Terminator 3, The Others] MPAA rating: PG-13 for violence, some sexuality and brief strong language. Runtime: 114 min Variety Top Critic Pretty soon she's fleeing from her gun-wielding seducer, trying to recover an identity that's being systematically erased through alteration of her personal computer records, and dodging bullets on spinning carousels.

January 26, 2006 | Full Review… Time Out Top Critic The Net is never quite as sleek and chilling as it might have been, but it gives the old story of a wrongly accused innocent a nerve-wracking 90's twist. August 30, 2004 | Rating: 3/5 New York Times Top Critic A strong enough suspense thriller, a high-tech version of one of those spiraling nightmares in which an innocent person is chased by assassins and wanted by the police. June 18, 2002 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review… San Francisco Chronicle Top Critic Borrowing heavily from Alfred Hitchcock and John Grisham, director Irwin Winkler reduces a potentially-fascinating premise to the spearhead of a routine thriller. January 1, 2000 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review… ReelViews Top Critic Director Irwin Winkler is as graceless as ever, although the gritty look and refreshingly low-tech action sequences are welcome.

January 14, 2011 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review… TV Guide Technophiles will find certain aspects of the plot less than plausible but a big budget, Bullock and a tense finale ensure Winkler dials up a daft but enjoyable diversion. January 14, 2011 | Full Review… Film4 Someday the next generation of film buffs will rent some of today's mega-buck blockbuster summer movies and watch them as B-movie camp. May 26, 2006 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Question: What was the name of the 1995 film starring Sandra Bullock as a computer expert whose identity is erased?
Answer: The Net